Anchors
Anchors is episode thirteen of MTV's ''Teen Wolf'' Season 3. It marks the return of the show from a hiatus of more than four months and was promoted as the "Winter Premiere" via official sources. Episode 313 is the first of 12 new episodes slated to run each Monday night at 10pm on MTV. The initial airing is the highest rated Teen Wolf episode to date. 2.4 million viewers tuned in for the 10PM EST broadcast on MTV. The episode was followed by Wolf Watch ''#313 the first airing of a new chat show hosted by Jill Wagner and featuring interviews with cast, creators and fans. Synopsis Scott, Stiles and Allison suffer side effects from the ritual sacrifice; Sheriff Stilinski searches through old cases looking for signs of the supernatural. Full Recap Stiles is in his bedroom asleep. He tosses and turns and grips the sheets. He mumbles to himself. “No, no, no, no, don’t let them in.” Suddenly he finds himself, seemingly awake, trapped in a locker at school. As he stumbles into a classroom he sees the Nemeton growing out of the floor. As he reaches out to touch the Nemeton, thick vines shoot out of the stump and wrap around his hand. He wakes, gasping for breath, back in his bedroom. Lydia is lying next to him and he explains to her that he was having a “dream within a dream.” Suddenly he realizes the oddity of having Lydia in his bed but before he can figure that part out, his door creaks open. Over Lydia’s protests, he rises to close the door because, he says, “what if they get in?” Lydia becomes increasingly upset as he approaches the door, begging him not to enter. He enters anyway and finds himself outside and once again at the Nemeton. He screams in an attempt to wake himself up and apparently succeeds. He awakens in daylight in his room, his father (Linden Ashby) sticks his head in the door and tells him to get his butt to school. At school Stiles explains to Scott about “sleep paralysis” a condition whereby the sleeper’s brain paralyses the body to avoid acting out a dream in the real world. Stiles says sometimes the brain wakes before the body recovers and a person becomes aware they are paralyzed. He posits that their surrogate sacrifice (see ''Lunar Ellipse) may have had lasting effects that are now manifesting in his sleep disorder. Stiles says what scares him the most is that he’s not even sure that what’s happening to him at that moment is real and not part of a dream. Stiles wakes screaming in his bed. His father rushes to hold him. Scott McCall is gathering up his books, preparing for school. He turns toward the door and catches sight of his shadow – his “shadow hand” seems to be a claw. He looks at his hand and sees that it remains untransformed. He closes and opens his hand the false shadow is gone. As he opens his door he is shocked to find Isaac Lahey standing there. After some uncomfortable banter, Isaac expresses concern that Scott might be angry with him. (While he doesn’t say specifically, it’s clear his concern stems from his growing attraction to Allison.) Scott says no, he is not angry, but when asked if he is sure about his answer he says no again. He explains that he’s not sure how he’s feeling. Isaac says Scott should hit him. Scott demurs but when Isaac insists he questions what, if anything, his friend has done to warrant a hit. He cites kissing as an example of something Isaac might have done, Isaac insists he hasn’t kissed Allison. When Scott asks him if he wanted to kiss Allison, Isaac doesn’t hesitate responding that he totally wanted to kiss her. Isaac flies through the door back into the hallway beyond striking the wall and rattling a picture frame. The noise draws Melissa McCall to the hall where she admonishes the “two supernatural teenage boys” not to test her patience. As Stiles readies himself for school, packing books into his backpack, he realizes that he can no longer read the title of one of the books. The title reads “DALESI XIS ANLA” with the subtitle “DOL WTAR I AWND RHIE WUTTRNRRIENLA SAOTRGLE FGO TPONE” His father enters to ask if he’s okay and the book’s title reverts to English. It now reads “ALLIES AND AXIS” “WORLD WAR II AND THE INTERNATIONAL STRUGGLE FOR POWER” ::: EDITOR’S NOTE: The title doesn't register any results in a Google search. Stiles lies, assuring his father that he is fine after the nightmare. Noticing that his father is carrying a banker’s box marked “SHERIFF’S STATION DO NOT REMOVE,” Stiles questions him about it. Sheriff Stilinski doesn’t explain simply saying they’re “files from the office.” Allison Argent leaves her apartment and enters the elevator. The air becomes much colder and the lighting dims. When the doors open she finds herself in the basement of Beacon Hills Hospital. The building is damaged with flickering florescent bulbs, broken furniture, and debris littering the corridor. She enters the morgue, water drips onto every surface. The door closes behind her. One of the corpse drawers pops open and the card on the front reads “CASE NO. 113/NAME OF DECEASED: KATE ARGENT/ PLACE OF DEATH (CITY): BEACON HILLS/PHYSICIAN: Dr. R. Smith” The sight triggers a series of flashbacks to Season 1 including Kate Argent’s death at the hands of Peter Hale. As she looks into the drawer, it seems endless, stretching back endlessly. The sound of creaking metal heralds the arrival of a dirty and screaming Kate Argent, crawling spider like, up the narrow conduit. Allison turns to run but as she pushes open the morgue door, she finds herself in the school hallway. Lydia Martin asks her if she is alright. Allison lies, shaking her head in the affirmative. Scott arrives at school on his dirt bike. He catches a glimpse of his reflection, his eyes are glowing red. He shakes his head and his reflection returns to normal. As he walks across the quad, his shadow appears to be that of a The Alpha Werewolf. He freaks out a bit and begins to run down the stairs toward the tunnel that leads to the athletic fields. He runs into Stiles who asks if his friend is alright. Scott lies, saying “I’m okay.” Stiles sees through this and calls him on the hallucinations. Lydia arrives with Allison and announces that it is happening to all three of them. At his office, Sheriff Stillinski is working on an elaborate “murder board” that is covered with calendars, images and sticky notes with thumbtacked pieces of string connecting it all together. ::: EDITORS NOTE: The Sheriff’s murder board includes an image of Actor Jesy McKinney who played Kyle in the episode Unleashed. Kyle is labeled as “Victim #1.” Adrian Harris is also on the board labeled as “Victim #23.” This is not the order in which the characters “died” in the earlier Season 3 episodes. I’m assuming the Sheriff has his own filing system in which these numbers make sense. ::: ALSO OF NOTE: The calendar pages shown are all from 2013 suggesting the production has abandoned the premise that the show is all taking place in the same year. This is despite the fact that not enough time has passed on screen to account for the change in years. The Sheriff pins a picture of a girl with auburn hair to the board. This triggers a flashback of an overturned car with a bloody hand reaching from the back seat passenger side window. A post-it note reading “Malia Tate” is attached to the girl's photo. Lydia is thrilled that she’s “no longer the crazy one.” Allison protests saying they’re not crazy but Lyida mocks her saying their various symptoms, hallucinations, sleep paralysis are all signs of folks who are just fine. Scott suggests that they are suffering side effects of dying and coming back to life and they all agree to keep an eye on each other. In history class, Mr. Yukimura introduces himself to the class explaining that he and his family moved to town “three weeks ago” and that his daughter attends the high school. He goes on to point out that his daughter never talks about people at school and has never brought anyone home, much to the embarrassment of his daughter Kira Yukimura who is sitting near the back of the class. Scott catches Kira’s eye and the two share a moment before he looks down to see his shadow growing into the monster figure once again. In the art classroom, Allison’s hand is shaking as she tries to maneuver a red paint tipped brush to the art paper suspended from an easel. She admits to Lydia that the trembling has been interfering with her fine motor skills since the events of Lunar Ellipse. She throws down the brush which splashes red paint onto the paper. This triggers a memory of her aunt Kate’s murder, the arterial blood splatter when Peter Halle slashed her throat. She also flashes back to her hallucination of Kate rushing toward her in the morgue. Lydia rips the splattered paper away and firmly demands that Allison should “start over.” She does and seems to have more control with the brush as we see Isaac watching her closely from across the classroom. Stiles is trying to get into his locker but the combination lock isn't cooperating. Scott says that maybe they just need a little more time to get back to normal but Stiles points out that they hit “the reset button on a supernatural beacon for supernatural creatures” and that things won’t ever go back to normal. Stiles' vision shifts again. The numbers have transformed into rune-like symbols (see image in gallery below). With his enhanced Werewolf hearing Scott overhears Kira arguing with her father about embarrassing her in class. Suddenly she senses that Scott can hear her even though he is far down the hall. The two lock eyes for just a second before Scott turns back to Stiles. The dial on Stiles’ locker now reads numbers instead of symbols. He notices that Scott’s eyes are glowing red. The pair dash into a classroom where Scott begins to lose control of his transformation. He buries his claws into the palms of his hands drawing blood and regains himself. “Pain makes you human” he explains to Stiles. Stiles realizes that the effects are not just in their heads but are instead real. He confesses that he doesn’t know if he’s awake or asleep explaining to Scott that, like a dreamer, he can no longer read. He looks around the classroom and all of the posters and the notes on the black board are all nonsense, gibberish. Lydia pins a target to a tree in the Beacon Hills Preserve. Allison, bow in hand, questions if this target practice will help. Lydia says it won’t unless she believes it will. Allison fires a couple of arrows and misses the target completely. Lydia suggests she try a “Mongolian Draw.” Allison complies and turns the bow sideways across her chest; she draws back and fires but misses again. ::: EDITOR’S NOTE: The “Mongolian Draw” is a real thing but it has more to do with how many fingers are used to draw the string than the position of the bow. Lydia tries to help Allison visualize the arrow going into the target but this has the unwanted effect of causing Allison to hallucinate her dead aunt running through the woods. Allison grabs her bow and heads off after the vision saying “I’ll be right back.” ::: EDITOR’S NOTE: Allison’s line “I’ll be right back” and Lydia’s response “You did not just say that” is satirizing a common trope in the horror genre where one character wanders off with a “I’ll be right back” and is promptly killed. Allison hears her aunt whispering her name, then sees the dead woman running full tilt at her in the dark. She draws her bow and quickly fires an arrow at the spectre. Suddenly, back in bright sunshine, Allison sees she has fired an arrow at Lydia. It would have struck her friend in the head had Isaac not jumped in and grabbed it. Later, Isaac relates the story to Scott who wonders aloud why Issac was following Allison around in the woods. Again, Isaac is thrown out the door and into the wall of the hallway. This time a painting falls from the wall and the glass shatters. Melissa McCall reminds them that “this house does not have a supernatural ability to heal!” Stiles arrives at his dad’s office with a flower arrangement. He says the last time they brought “one of these to her grave” it was stolen the same day. The Sheriff is busy with piles of file folders on the floor. He explains that he is going back through all the old cases to see if they were supernatural in nature. He says he has no choice but to apply his new knowledge to the old cases. He explains that one of his first cases as sheriff, the death of a mother and two children, may have had a supernatural component. At the time, they believed that the family was killed by coyotes and that one of the children (Malia Tate, the photo we saw earlier) was dragged away and eaten by a coyote. Now he thinks something else may have been to blame because it happened on a full moon. Stiles notices that there are a number of other banker’s boxes scattered around, packed up with files and labeled “Deliver to FBI Field Office| Special Agent McCall” when he asks about them, his father says they “need to talk.” Stiles arrives in class and someone is in his seat. When he points this out to the student, she responds with sign language. Suddenly he realizes that everyone is completely silent. He sees Coach Bobby Finstock at the head of the class. The coach begins signing the same message as the student. Stiles decides to leave and the entire class begins signing at him, the same message, over and over, faster and faster until he snaps awake in Economics class with Coach Finstock now blowing a whistle at him. He thinks he fell asleep in class but Scott points out that he wasn’t sleeping as evidenced by his notebook where Stiles has covered the page with the words “Wake Up” in a variety of forms and patterns. In the outdoor lunch area, Lydia, Allison, Isaac, Stiles and Scott discuss the hallucinations and waking dreams. At one point Isaac cracks a joke that people with the same symptoms end up in mental institutions. Stiles become agitated the two exchange words with Stiles demanding that he try to be helpful and Isaac countering that he spent half his childhood “locked in a freezer” (see Shape Shifted) and being helpful is a new thing. Stiles belittles his childhood trauma asking “are you still milking that?” Kira walks up and interrupts saying she “overheard” what they were talking about and, to her, the symptoms sound like the Buddhist concept of Bardo. She says it’s a transitional state of being between life and death, marked by visits from peaceful deities and demons and ultimately resulting in death. ::: EDITOR’S NOTE: Bardo is a real part of the belief system. In reality, it differs from the explanation Kira gives in that Bardo is the period between death and rebirth or reincarnation into the next life. Stiles and Scott visit Dr. Deaton to discuss the hallucinations. He says it sounds like Stiles’ subconscious is trying to communicate with him through sign language. He works out that the message Stiles was seeing is “When is a door not a door?” which is the first part of a riddle. The answer to the question is “When it’s ajar” playing on the word for a partially open door and it’s similarity in sound to the name of a glass cylinder used to store food. Deaton says when they died they opened a door in their minds and apparently left it partially open or ajar which he says is dangerous. He says they need to close the doors in their minds as soon as possible. Sheriff Stilinski arrives at the Vet Clinic looking for Scott. He wants help solving the Tate case, the apparent coyote attack from eight years before. He thinks Scott might be able to follow her scent to the body. The Sheriff arrives at the Tate Farm. Mr. Tate is unpacking a small rat trap explaining that he’s been having a coyote problem and the trap will take away the predator’s food source. The Sheriff launches into his explanation for the visit but it is all just a ruse to allow Scott and Stiles time to break into the missing little girl’s bedroom and sniff around. Scott is unable to find a trace of scent because the smell of the family dog is overwhelming everything else. They leave without any new leads and the Sheriff expresses regret at the scheme because he caused Mr. Tate pain by reopening the old wound left by the deaths of his family. Stiles explains why his father is so intent on solving the case immediately so he can solve one more while he’s “still sheriff.” Scott is yelling at his father as Melissa McCall arrives home. Agent McCall tries to explain that putting together evidence to impeach Sheriff Stilinski for a “lack of resolution and ability to close cases” is just “doing his job.” Scott becomes so angry he begins to transform, seeing this Melissa gets him away from his father into the front hallway. She remembers that Stiles and Scott had worked out that werewolves develop anchors to avoid unwanted transformations and urges him to find his anchor. Scott says Allison was his anchor but he doesn’t have her anymore. Melissa urges him to “be your own anchor” which Scott manages to do, stopping and then reversing the transformation. Melissa then shares some important wisdom with her son. She points out that he will fall in love again and that it will be just as intense and painful as the first time. She says until he falls in love again he should be his own anchor. Scott rushes over to Stiles’ house and, with flashlight in hand, tells Stiles that they are going searching for a dead body. ::: Editor’s Note: This is a callback to the series’ opening scene in which Stiles comes to Scott’s to enlist his aid in finding a dead body. Alison and Isaac are making out. Allison asks for reassurance that Scott is okay with their relations, Isaac says he is even though Scott didn’t come right out and say he was okay with it because he's "moved on." Allison notices something around his neck and suddenly Kate Argent pops up behind him, pulling a garrote tight around his neck and urging Allison to help her kill Isaac. Allison notes with some surprise that she has a Chinese ring dagger tucked behind her in bed. Allison wakes up gasping in her bed and is surprised to find that she really does have a Chinese ring dagger in bed. Lydia is asleep nearby; they appear to have dozed off while studying. In the woods, Scott and Stiles manage to find the scene of the car wreck. The car is still there in the same spot where it crashed eight years before. Stiles speculates that it would have been too much trouble to tow it out from way back in the woods. They find a doll in the wreckage, the same doll seen in a photograph at the Tate house earlier, the doll’s voice box triggers and scares Stiles. They hear a roar and Scott notices two glowing eyes in the trees beyond. He calls on Stiles to confirm what he is seeing is real, then sets off after the grey furred creature. Scott catches up and faces it, his eyes glow red and the other creature’s eyes glow blue, indicating it has taken an innocent life. He calls out the name “Malia” as the animal runs away. ::: EDITOR’S NOTE: The production refers to the creature shown as a “werecoyote” although it is not said outright on the show and the animal is similar in many respects to other canines. On a table lined with bloody knives, wire cutters and other torture tools, a cell phone buzzes. A message on the screen reads “Scott McCall: Derek Call me.” This is followed immediately by a second text reading “Scott McCall: Derek, need help. Call back ASAP!” ::: EDITOR’S NOTE: The time code seen on the phone reads “11:54PM Fri, August 23.” This appears to be another in a series of mistaken screens seen this season. The events of Season 3(a) presumably started in August or September with the first day of the new school year. At the beginning of this episode, only a few weeks have passed since the events of episode 312. Additionally, the Mischief Night/Halloween episode arc is set to begin in two weeks suggesting the show is currently taking place in late September or early October. Peter and Derek Hale hang suspended on a section of chain link inside a warehouse of some sort. The fencing is electrified, sending shocks through the two men’s bodies at regular intervals. Electricity applied in this fashion can keep werewolves from transforming (see Werewolf#Weaknesses). Peter says Derek acts like this is all his fault which Derek points out is true. A shadowy figure dials up the electric current. Gallery Teen Wolf Season 3 Episode 13 Anchors Stiles Locker.png Teen Wolf Season 3 Episode 13 Anchors Tyler Posey Dylan O'brien Scott and Stiles with plastic horse.png Teen Wolf Season 3 Episode 13 Anchors Tyler Posey Scott with tire tread.png Teen Wolf Season 3 Episode 13 Anchors Farm Mailbox.png Teen Wolf Season 3 Episode 13 Anchors accident victim.png Teen Wolf Season 3 Episode 13 Anchors Dylan O'Brien Stiles dreams the Nemeton.png Teen Wolf Season 3 Behind the Scenes 3(b) second Trailer fox.png Teen Wolf Season 3 Behind the Scenes 3(b) second Trailer Kate.png Teen Wolf Season 3 Episod 13 Anchors Malia Tate.png Teen Wolf Season 3 Episode 13 Anchors Derek and Peter are kept prisoners.png Teen Wolf Season 3 Episode 13 Anchors Here's Comes Aunt Kate!.png Teen Wolf Season 3 Episode 13 Anchors Blue Eyes Shapeshifter.png Teen Wolf Season 3 Episode 13 Anchors Arden Cho as Kira.png Teen Wolf Season 3 Episode 13 Tom T. Choi as Mr. Yukimura.png Teen Wolf Season 3 Episode 13 Tom T. Choi Arden Cho Kira and her dad.png Video Video trailers released prior to the airing of Anchors included scenes from more than one episode. Category:Episodes Category:Season 3